{"id":360,"date":"2012-10-22T21:07:08","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T01:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/?p=360"},"modified":"2013-09-01T15:40:16","modified_gmt":"2013-09-01T19:40:16","slug":"5-ways-to-study-comedic-timing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/?p=360","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways to Study Comedic Timing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our newest guest blogger <\/em>is hard at work on several writing projects and has some insights to share on how children’s authors can create comedic characters who connect to young readers.\u00a0 Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

*************************************************************<\/p>\n

H.C. Ablewick is an aspiring Middle Grade Fiction author who loves large paper clips and anything made from glass.<\/em><\/p>\n

5 Ways to Study Comedic Timing<\/strong><\/p>\n

For<\/strong><\/p>\n

Authors of Children\u2019s Literature<\/strong><\/p>\n

By H.C. Ablewick<\/em><\/p>\n

Some of the most successful children\u2019s authors have won audiences with humor,\u00a0 J.K. Rowling, Judy Blume, Kate DiCamillo, and Jeff Kinney, to name a few. How\u2019d they do it? Comedic timing. It can be subtle or outrageous. It can be heart-felt or mean-spirited, depending on the characters. If you\u2019re looking for ways to study comedic timing and what makes children laugh, here are a few suggestions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Movies with Adults Acting Crazy with Animals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Think monkey scene in A Night at the Museum<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cGood Lord, Lawrence, why are you slapping a monkey?\u201d Robin Williams (as Teddy Roosevelt) says when he sees Ben Stiller (Larry Daley) slapping a monkey.\u00a0 It\u2019s the kind of scene that makes kids laugh out loud, shout even. Why? It\u2019s so unrealistic. The secret: children love fictional realism. They know it would be mean for a man to slap an animal but they know this scene wouldn\u2019t happen in real life.\u00a0 It\u2019s just funny to see a grown man provoked by a monkey.<\/p>\n

In the movie Enchanted<\/em>, Timothy Spall (Nathaniel ) chases a chipmunk around a diner while James Marsden (Prince Edward), dressed in full-blown, Prince Charming attire tries to decipher the chipmunk\u2019s squeaks. Children love this scene.\u00a0 It\u2019s about a grown man dressed up like a medieval prince in a modern diner and he\u2019s acting like he understands a chipmunk. What isn\u2019t funny about that?<\/p>\n

Other notable movies with adults acting crazy with animals are Alvin and the Chipmunks<\/em> (any time Dave yells at Alvin) and Mr. Hopper\u2019s Penguins.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Animated Movies with Animals Falling in Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why children become hysterical over these scenes, but they do. I\u2019ve witnessed it numerous times in the movie theaters. Most recently, I saw Ice Age 3<\/em>.\u00a0 Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel, became love-struck with a female saber-toothed squirrel. His eyes popped. She batted her heavily made-up eyes in slow motion. They played the easy-listening hit, \u201cYou\u2019ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine,\u201d by the 70\u2019s R&B singer Lou Rawls and the children in the audience roared.<\/p>\n

The Scrat scene isn\u2019t new. When I was young, we watched PePe Le Pew, the French skunk of the Looney Tunes cartoons. He strutted through the streets of Paris in the spring looking for love.\u00a0 Like Scrat though, PePe didn\u2019t end up with the girl. Wild chase scenes and misunderstandings followed his love scenes and added to their humor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. Children playing with Toys<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you watch children with their toys, you\u2019ll pick up quite a few tricks. Anything bizarre seems to make them laugh. For example, a young relative of mine once stuck ten Lego mini-figure heads together. She and her brother laughed hysterically then\u00a0 took turns creating weird combinations of mini-figures, like a surfer dude\u2019s head on a chef\u2019s coat with policeman\u2019s pants all topped with a witch\u2019s hat. It became a competition between them to see who could come up with the most outrageous mini-figure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

4. Funniest Video Shows and Wipe-Out Shows<\/strong><\/p>\n

Physical comedy is always a hit. The Funniest Video shows always have people doing stupid things and getting hurt and kids laugh. They also love dogs chasing chickens and cats hanging from ceiling fans.<\/p>\n

In the Wipe Out shows, people bounce off giant balls, they\u2019re knocked into pools trying to dart through moving poles, and they\u2019re catapulted across fire and water into pools of foam. These shows have created adult playgrounds. The participants act crazy and children love to watch them throw themselves into the obstacles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Long, very Long, Names<\/strong><\/p>\n

My young relatives used a DSi to record the Minister of Magic reading Dumbledore\u2019s will in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I<\/em>. I couldn\u2019t figure out why they were recording it until they played it back. The Minister, with a very serious tone, announces, \u201cHerein is set forth the last will and testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.\u201d The children played it back and almost fell off the couch laughing then tried to repeat the name until they got it right.<\/p>\n

I hope this article triggered some ideas. Good luck to you.<\/p>\n

-H.C. Ablewick<\/p>\n

The author can be reached at hc.ablewick@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our newest guest blogger is hard at work on several writing projects and has some insights to share on how children’s authors can create comedic characters who connect to young readers.\u00a0 Enjoy! ************************************************************* H.C. Ablewick is an aspiring Middle Grade Fiction author who loves large paper clips and anything made from glass. 5 Ways to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,49,50,51],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childrens-books","tag-childrens-writers","tag-comedic-timing","tag-comedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enceladusliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}